


And Ever After?

by Deifire



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 18:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2821217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deifire/pseuds/Deifire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Aurora was easy to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Ever After?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [babykid528](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babykid528/gifts).



Queen Aurora was easy to love. She was young, charming, and had been blessed with the fairy gifts of beauty and happiness at her christening, which hadn’t hurt in the slightest. She was also a person who seemed to genuinely care about others. When Aurora talked with someone—be it human or fairy, king or commoner—that individual came away from the conversation believing that, just for a moment, he or she had been the very most important person in Aurora’s world.

It was easy to see how her subjects adored her.

Queen Aurora was harder to fear. Initially Maleficent had tried to teach the young queen to be intimidating, but it hadn’t taken. Aurora confessed one day that while she admired the way her godmother could make people choke on their words with a mere look, and make every knee in the court shake just by the way she strode into a room, she herself couldn’t pull it off without feeling extremely silly. 

Queen Aurora would be a very different sort of ruler than Maleficent was, the latter realized. After Maleficent had watched the new queen talk a belligerent human ambassador threatening war around to supporting an alliance using only kind words and the well-timed application of an I’m-so-disappointed-in-you look, she realized that Queen Aurora would also be more than capable of holding her own.

“Please help me,” Aurora had asked Maleficent following her coronation. “I don’t know how to do this...how to _be_ this yet.” She was optimistic then, but still a bit frightened, a peasant girl who suddenly found herself in charge of two kingdoms, with Maleficent the closest thing she had to both family and a predecessor at the job.

And so Maleficent had gone from being Ruler and Protector of the Moors to Protector of the Queen, teaching young Aurora everything she knew about statecraft and fairy custom. The customs of the human court were outside Maleficent’s immediate realm of expertise, but the people there loved Aurora enough—or were at least relieved enough at finally having a ruler who was neither greedy, nor cruel, nor desperately ill, nor slipping slowly into madness—that most were willing to be patient with the inexperienced queen. For those that weren’t…well, there was always the near-constant presence of the queen’s fairy godmother to terrify them into decent behavior.

Aurora learned quickly, and in less than two years, she not only had reputation for kindness, but was gaining one for wisdom, as well.

And then there was the matter of the queen’s betrothal.

~

“Prince Phillip will make an excellent match, Beastie,” Maleficent told her after Aurora called her godmother to her private chambers and confided in her that she was afraid— _afraid_ for some ridiculous reason—that the prince was planning on proposing the next day. “You could do far worse than an alliance with Ulstead. Besides, he cares for you and you for him, if I’m not mistaken.”

“He does,” said Aurora. “I mean, I do. We do. Care for each other, that is.”

“Then I fail to see the problem.”

“It’s just that when I kiss him, it doesn’t feel like…well, what I expected true love to feel like.”

"Oh?"

“Aunt Thistlewit says we’re not doing it right,” said Aurora.

“My dear, I don’t know how it has managed to escape your attention for nearly eighteen years, but your Aunt Thistlewit is a half-wit,” Maleficent replied.

Aurora giggled. “That’s not very nice,” she said. “Besides, you know what I mean.”

Maleficent raised an eyebrow at this. “I do?”

“Well, you’ve had experience at this sort of thing that the aunties haven’t. I mean, my father…”

Maleficent froze. “Beastie, I believe I’ve told you before, that is not a subject I wish to discuss with you. Now or ever,” she said in her chilliest voice.

Aurora looked briefly abashed, if not afraid. “I’m sorry, Godmother,” she said, putting her hand in Maleficent’s. Maleficent took the girl’s hand in both her own, and had time for the tiniest spark of hope that the the line of questioning was dropped, until Aurora cheered and continued, “With Diaval, then.”

Diaval? It hadn’t escaped Maleficent’s attention that her companion harbored certain feelings for her, and apparently it hadn’t escaped Aurora’s, either. Still, why would the silly girl assume the feeling was mutual?

“Diaval,” Maleficent said at last, “is a bird.”

“When he’s not being a man,” Aurora countered. “Besides, you’re from the Moors, and I know among the people there, shape doesn’t have to matter all that much. I mean, one of my ladies-in-waiting looks like a bit like a small elephant and is engaged to a walking tree…”

Maleficent sighed. “Be that as may, Diaval is my friend and sworn companion. He would not make an appropriate choice for a lover.”

“Why not?” asked Aurora.

_Because I do not love him, and even I, once called Mistress of All Evil, am not that needlessly cruel,_ Maleficent didn’t say aloud. It would only confuse the very sage advice she was trying to give her Beastie. “We were not talking about me, we were talking about you, a young lady with certain obligations to wed," she said instead, “and Prince Phillip, a young man who would make an excellent choice for a husband.”

“Even if I don’t know if I love him?” asked Aurora.

Maleficent laughed, and it wasn’t a kind laugh. “My dear, do you honestly think love has anything whatever to do with a royal marriage? Do you think your mother married for love?” 

She felt the girl stiffen at that, and begin to pull away. Maleficent sighed. Aurora had nothing to do with the circumstances of her parent’s marriage. Maleficent had put the burden of that on her long ago with a curse, and come to regret it more than anything. She would not have the girl taking the burden back on herself due to some careless words. She pulled Aurora back.

“Never mind, Beastie,” Maleficent said, stroking Aurora's hair. “I only meant that the price of being royalty sometimes includes doing what we’d rather not do. In the case of human beings, this means marrying and producing an heir. But you must forgive me for being confused. You see, it wasn’t until our conversation just now I realized marrying Phillip would be in any way distasteful to you. Has he done something to make you dislike him?”

“No,” said Aurora hastily. “No, it’s not that at all. It’s just…he’s my very dearest human friend, and I care about him very much, but beyond that, I don’t know that I love him.”

“You may learn to love him given time, you know. I’m assured it does happen”

“But what if I love someone else?”

Maleficent raised her eyebrows in surprise. “There is another young man?”

“No,” said Aurora, fixing Maleficent with a serious look. And before the fairy could ask what she meant, the young queen brought a hand to Maleficent’s wing and stroked the feathers tenderly. “No, there isn’t a man.”

Maleficent shivered. It wasn’t a touch she had ever allowed anyone. Not since Stefan…

Aurora leaned closer, swallowed audibly, and brought her other hand to Maleficent’s cheek. “Maleficent, I…”

“No!” Maleficent said. She grabbed the girl’s wrists and forced them down, none too gently. “No, Beastie. Not this.”

“But…”

Maleficent stared at her. She loved Aurora, of course, but what she saw in the queen's eyes now defied belief. Aurora was young, even still, and had no idea what she was asking for. This was a type of love Maleficent had stopped believing in long before Aurora was even born. Even if it was a type of love she ever could believe in again, it was, under the circumstances, quite impossible. She released the woman, stood up, and said firmly, “This cannot be. You know that.”

“But I want…”

“And I do not,” said Maleficent, putting all the fearsome power of the Protector of the Moors into her voice. “And being queen does not entitle you to everything you want. Especially not from me.” _Your father learned that lesson the hard way,_ she added silently.

Aurora, whose face seldom held anything but joy, looked as though she were about to cry. “I’m sorry," she said, "I just thought…I love you.”

Maleficent sighed. Aurora was not her father, and did not deserve Maleficent's misdirected emotions left over from a past long thought buried. Another reason this could never be. She let her voice soften, slightly. “And I, you. But not like this.”

“No?” Aurora asked.

“No,” Maleficent lied. 

There was a long silence.

Finally, Maleficent turned toward the door. “Goodnight, Beastie,” she said. “I will see you in the morning. I hope tomorrow’s meeting with Prince Phillip goes well. And I sincerely hope you will consider what is best for both your own future and the future of the lands that you rule when you make your reply.”

“Goodnight Godmother,” Aurora said to Maleficent’s retreating back, as the door slammed shut.

In the hall outside the queen’s chambers, Maleficent paused just for a second to trace the line of Aurora’s caress on her own cheek.

~

The proposal happened the next day, as suspected. Phillip had taken Aurora somewhere private, so Maleficent was not present. Nor had she thought to send Diaval to eavesdrop, much to her later frustration. So she only heard the details from Aurora herself some time later.

“So are congratulations in order?” Maleficent asked, when the queen eventually sought her out.

“I didn’t say yes,” said Aurora.

Maleficent sighed. “Tell me you at least turned him down diplomatically.”

“Well, Godmother, I didn’t exactly say no, either,” said Aurora.

Maleficent raised an eyebrow, and waited for her Beastie to continue.

“I told him that I needed time,” Aurora said. “After all, I am still young and my people in both kingdoms are still getting to know me. It’s better for me to rule alone for a small while, and be confident they accept me, before joining myself to another. I asked him to ask me again on my twentieth birthday, and I would accept him then.”

“I see,” said Maleficent. She didn’t, really. But she could picture Queen Aurora explaining it all to poor, besotted Phillip and making it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world.

“It’s more than two years. It gives me time,” explained Aurora. “And as someone once told me, given time, I can learn to love him.”

“I see,” said Maleficent again.

~

Queen Aurora was easy to love, and sometimes the force of that love could be terrifying.

Maleficent, perhaps without quite realizing she was doing it, arranged to see less of the young queen after that, assigning herself, with Aurora’s passive acquiescence, more of the day-to-day duties of governing the Moors, while Aurora, still ruler of both realms in name, began spending more of her time in the human kingdom. It was an arrangement that seemed to please the subjects of both realms. Even now, the humans still feared Maleficent, and the fairies, while they loved Aurora, had never quite gotten used to a human being as a constant presence in their land.

It was an arrangement that seemed to please both women, as well. Aurora, who was growing out of the need for either, looked to Maleficent as her mentor and beloved fairy godmother, and eventually stopped looking _at_ Maleficent in a way the latter knew meant she longed for something else. Maleficent, for her part, played the role of mentor as needed, and was silently relieved that it was needed less and less.

They still spoke, but seldom alone.

~

The eve of Aurora’s twentieth birthday found Maleficent brooding in a tree. Tomorrow, there would be dancing, and smiling, and diplomacy, and politely pretending not to notice how most of the humans in Aurora’s court still couldn’t make small talk with her without trembling. But for one last evening, she could be alone with her thoughts.

She heard the sound of wings. Alone, apparently, except for Diaval. She watched as the raven perched himself on a heavy branch above her, and somehow managed to stay balanced on it as he transformed into his human shape.

“The queen requests your presence at the palace,” Diaval said, when the transformation was complete.

Maleficent sat up. “Is there trouble?”

“The queen did not say, my lady,” said Diaval.

“Did she _sound_ as though there was trouble?”

“The queen said, and I merely quote, ‘If my godmother has any questions, she may come here and find the answers for herself.’”

It would have sounded light and teasing in Aurora’s voice, but no less like a command for all that.

Maleficent went.

She found Aurora waiting on the balcony outside her chambers when she arrived.

“Hello, Beastie,” Maleficent said as she landed.

“Hello, Godmother,” cried Aurora, beaming. She ran to Maleficent, and threw her arms around her. “I’ve missed you.”

“You would have seen me tomorrow,” said Maleficent, after returning the embrace. For the first time in a small while, she allowed herself to stop and study her Beastie. Aurora was beautiful, truly a woman grown now. The peasant girl Maleficent had once known had transformed into a creature with the natural grace and bearing of a born queen. Though for all that, she hadn't yet lost her youthful exuberance, or her smile.

“I know,” said Aurora. “But I wanted to see you tonight.”

“And why is that, Beastie?”

“Godmother,” the queen began, “you know I’ve never asked you for much…”

_Only my heart,_ Maleficent thought. But, no, that wasn’t true. She’d freely given that ages ago.

“And what do you require of me tonight?” Maleficent asked when the pause became lengthy.

“Would you take me flying?”

It was a simple enough request. One that Maleficent, in the early days following the return of her wings, had once indulged Aurora in freely. She gathered her into her arms, spread her wings and took off into the night sky.

They flew across the length and breadth of both kingdoms, Aurora laughing, while Maleficent concentrated on keeping her hold while she tried to startle Aurora with twists and loops and sudden dives and other aerial acrobatics of the sort that had always made the queen thrilled, but never frightened. 

Finally, Maleficent tired. She returned, hovering, to the air above the palace.

“Was that all you needed of me, Beastie?” she asked the woman in her arms.

Aurora looked at her for a long moment, then looked away. “I wanted to tell you. I told Phillip I love another.”

Maleficent was so startled she nearly dropped her. “Why in the name of everything sacred would you do that?”

“Because I found I couldn’t lie to someone I care about,” Aurora said. “I know you don’t love me...“ 

“I never said—“ Maleficent interrupted.

“I know you don’t love me _the way I love you_ ,” Aurora amended. “You told me so and I haven't forgotten. If need be, I will marry for the sake of the kingdoms. But tonight, I wanted to let you know that I still love you, will always love you, for the rest of my life.”

Maleficent swallowed. “Beastie,” she said, “do you remember what they once used to call me? The Mistress of All Evil?”

Aurora smiled at her. “You’re going to pick now to try to convince me your fearsome reputation is anything more than greatly exaggerated?”

“No,” said Maleficent. “But I am reminded from time to time that I do lack your essential goodness and honesty. For example, there was a time not long ago when I believed it was for the best to lie to someone I care about...to someone I _do_ love, that is...for her own good.”

Maleficent watched Aurora’s eyes widen in shock, as she took her meaning, then found she had to fight once more not to drop her as Aurora chose to respond, not with words, but by kissing Maleficent fiercely. She struggled to keep hold and stay airborne as the kiss deepened, and with a moan, was finally forced to concede defeat and break away long enough to make a landing back on the queen’s balcony.

Aurora laughed as Maleficent set her down, gently. “I love you,” she said again, and moved to resume the kiss.

Maleficent stopped her. “You realize there is no way this ends happily ever after, don’t you?”

“I realized no such thing,” said Queen Aurora. “I believe when it needs to, true love always finds a way.”

“As you say,” said Maleficent. “If my queen believes, I also believe.” In her deepest heart, Maleficent knew she was lying again, but tried to will herself, at least for the moment, to let the words be true.

She took Aurora into her arms as they kissed once more. 

The moment went on for a very long time.


End file.
